Repair to the breakwater at the Banana Point boat launch south of Petersburg was one of several federally funded infrastructure projects in Petersburg thrown in to question by a series of recent executive orders and memos from the White House. (Photo: Olivia Rose/KFSK)

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The Trump Administration prompted nationwide uncertainty this week with a broadly worded memo that froze federal grants and loans. The memo itself has since been rescinded, but what that means for any funding freezes remains unclear. Meanwhile, officials in Alaska are still scrambling to understand the impact of a prior Trump Administration freeze that halts spending on infrastructure projects. 

Petersburg’s Karl Hagerman is on the board of a hydropower nonprofit in Southeast Alaska. He says it never occurred to him that the Trump administration would try to pull money Congress had already approved.

I assumed that any projects that were established, I figured those programs would move forward,” he said. “Did not see that these would be put on hold, hopefully just temporarily at this point. But we don’t know.”

He’s talking about the funding freeze President Donald Trump issued on his first day in office, when he signed the executive order called Unleashing American Energy. The freeze was for all projects paid for through two laws Congress passed during the Biden administration, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. 

The Southeast Alaska Power Agency, or SEAPA, produces wholesale energy from two hydropower facilities in the central panhandle. The nonprofit was set to get $5 million in federal money to partly fund a generator and turbine that would let the agency provide more power to the Southeast towns of Petersburg, Wrangell and Ketchikan.

Hagerman says he’s still hopeful the project will move forward eventually. His optimism comes in part from a line in Section 3 of the order that cites hydropower as a preferred energy source

That is a hydro project, and that does align with the new administration’s goals as far as energy, so chances are it’ll probably survive as well,” Hagerman said. “But we’re all trying to figure out what this means, so no guarantees.”

The Trump administration says it plans to review the infrastructure grants over the next 90 days to ensure they don’t further Biden’s policies — or hinder Trump’s.

Petersburg Borough Manager Steve Geisbrecht had already been struggling to figure out which of the borough’s many federal funding sources were on pause. Then, on Monday, the White House announced a sweeping funding freeze to all federal loans and grants. 

Later the same day, a federal judge temporarily blocked the new freeze. Then the White House rescinded the memo that announced the freeze. Then a White House spokesperson announced that a freeze was still in place.

Geisbrecht says the whole thing has been really confusing — he’s getting different answers from different people at different times. 

What we found was, in many cases, they weren’t exactly sure what was going on, either,” he said. “There’s a lot of work talking to, you know, the administration, to figure out exactly who does this apply to.”

The borough was expecting nearly $1 million for a breakwater at the boat launch south of town. At first, Geisbrect thought that money was safe, but now he’s not so sure. The same goes for a regionwide study on trash disposal alternatives. 

But he says the funding for an already-finished hydropower plant upgrade definitely is on pause. Ditto for the just-announced funding for a new boat haul-out. That project was supposed to go out to bid by the end of January.

“This is the time of year we schedule a lot of those projects to get started,” he said. ”So we’re doing paperwork and making sure money is where it’s supposed to be, so we can get things bid out, and all that comes to a screeching halt.”

He says even a short pause could make it difficult for projects to move forward.

U.S. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is concerned about that, too. She says she heard from one project manager who was worried that if they paused their projects for 90 days, they would be set back a whole year.

“In order to move a project through in Alaska, you’ve got to get the building materials,” Murkowski said. “You’ve got to get the materials lined up so that they can be mobilized, put on a barge to get to the region in time for the construction season.”

She says it’s just one example of the questions she’s getting from Alaskans — questions she doesn’t know how to answer yet. 

Alaska Public Media’s Liz Ruskin contributed reporting from Washington D.C.